Chapter 3

Symbolic Logic and Proofs

Logic is the study of consequence. Given a few mathematical statements

or facts, we would like to be able to draw some conclusions. For exam-
ple, if I told you that a particular real-valued function was continuous
on the interval [0, 1], and f (0)  −1 and f (1)  5, can we conclude that
there is some point between [0, 1] where the graph of the function crosses
the x-axis? Yes, we can, thanks to the Intermediate Value Theorem from
Calculus. Can we conclude that there is exactly one point? No. When-
ever we find an “answer” in math, we really have a (perhaps hidden)
argument. Mathematics is really about proving general statements (like
the Intermediate Value Theorem), and this too is done via an argument,
usually called a proof. We start with some given conditions, the premises
of our argument, and from these we find a consequence of interest, our
conclusion.
The problem is, as you no doubt know from arguing with friends, not
all arguments are good arguments. A “bad” argument is one in which
the conclusion does not follow from the premises, i.e., the conclusion is
not a consequence of the premises. Logic is the study of what makes an
argument good or bad. In other words, logic aims to determine in which
cases a conclusion is, or is not, a consequence of a set of premises.
By the way, “argument” is actually a technical term in math (and
philosophy, another discipline which studies logic):
Arguments.
An argument is a set of statements, one of which is called the
conclusion and the rest of which are called premises. An argument
is said to be valid if the conclusion must be true whenever the
premises are all true. An argument is invalid if it is not valid; it
is possible for all the premises to be true and the conclusion to be
false.

For example, consider the following two arguments:

If Edith eats her vegetables, then she can have a cookie.
Edith eats her vegetables.
∴ Edith gets a cookie.
Florence must eat her vegetables in order to get a cookie.
Florence eats her vegetables.
∴ Florence gets a cookie.

197
198 3. Symbolic Logic and Proofs

(The symbol “ ∴ ” means “therefore”)

Are these arguments valid? Hopefully you agree that the first one is
but the second one is not. Logic tells us why by analyzing the structure
of the statements in the argument. Notice the two arguments above look
almost identical. Edith and Florence both eat their vegetables. In both
cases there is a connection between the eating of vegetables and cookies.
But we claim that it is valid to conclude that Edith gets a cookie, but not
that Florence does. The difference must be in the connection between
eating vegetables and getting cookies. We need to be skilled at reading
and comprehending these sentences. Do the two sentences mean the
same thing? Unfortunately, in everyday language we are often sloppy,
and you might be tempted to say they are equivalent. But notice that just
because Florence must eat her vegetables, we have not said that doing so
would be enough (she might also need to clean her room, for example). In
everyday (non-mathematical) practice, you might be tempted to say this
“other direction” is implied. In mathematics, we never get that luxury.
Before proceeding, it might be a good idea to quickly review Section 0.2
where we first encountered statements and the various forms they can
take. The goal now is to see what mathematical tools we can develop to
better analyze these, and then to see how this helps read and write proofs.

3.1 Propositional Logic

Investigate!
You stumble upon two trolls playing Stratego®. They tell you:
Troll 1: If we are cousins, then we are both knaves.
Troll 2: We are cousins or we are both knaves.

Could both trolls be knights? Recall that all trolls are either
always-truth-telling knights or always-lying knaves.

! Attempt the above activity before proceeding !

A proposition is simply a statement. Propositional logic studies the
ways statements can interact with each other. It is important to remember
that propositional logic does not really care about the content of the
statements. For example, in terms of propositional logic, the claims, “if
the moon is made of cheese then basketballs are round,” and “if spiders
have eight legs then Sam walks with a limp” are exactly the same. They
are both implications: statements of the form, P → Q.
 3.1. Propositional Logic 199

Truth Tables
Here’s a question about playing Monopoly:

If you get more doubles than any other player then you will
lose, or if you lose then you must have bought the most prop-
erties.

True or false? We will answer this question, and won’t need to know
anything about Monopoly. Instead we will look at the logical form of the
statement.
We need to decide when the statement (P → Q) ∨ (Q → R) is true.
Using the definitions of the connectives in Section 0.2, we see that for this
to be true, either P → Q must be true or Q → R must be true (or both).
Those are true if either P is false or Q is true (in the first case) and Q is false
or R is true (in the second case). So—yeah, it gets kind of messy. Luckily,
we can make a chart to keep track of all the possibilities. Enter truth
tables. The idea is this: on each row, we list a possible combination of T’s
and F’s (for true and false) for each of the sentential variables, and then
mark down whether the statement in question is true or false in that case.
We do this for every possible combination of T’s and F’s. Then we can
clearly see in which cases the statement is true or false. For complicated
statements, we will first fill in values for each part of the statement, as a
way of breaking up our task into smaller, more manageable pieces.
Since the truth value of a statement is completely determined by the
truth values of its parts and how they are connected, all you really need
to know is the truth tables for each of the logical connectives. Here they
are:
P Q P∧Q P Q P∨Q P Q P→Q P Q P↔Q
T T T T T T T T T T T T
T F F T F T T F F T F F
F T F F T T F T T F T F
F F F F F F F F T F F T
The truth table for negation looks like this:
P ¬P
T F
F T
None of these truth tables should come as a surprise; they are all just
restating the definitions of the connectives. Let’s try another one.
200 3. Symbolic Logic and Proofs

Example 3.1.1

Make a truth table for the statement ¬P ∨ Q.

Solution. Note that this statement is not ¬(P ∨ Q), the negation
belongs to P alone. Here is the truth table:
P Q ¬P ¬P ∨ Q
T T F T
T F F F
F T T T
F F T T
We added a column for ¬P to make filling out the last column
easier. The entries in the ¬P column were determined by the entries
in the P column. Then to fill in the final column, look only at the
column for Q and the column for ¬P and use the rule for ∨.

Now let’s answer our question about monopoly:

Example 3.1.2

Analyze the statement, “if you get more doubles than any other
player you will lose, or that if you lose you must have bought the
most properties,” using truth tables.
Solution. Represent the statement in symbols as (P → Q) ∨ (Q →
R), where P is the statement “you get more doubles than any other
player,” Q is the statement “you will lose,” and R is the statement
“you must have bought the most properties.” Now make a truth
table.
The truth table needs to contain 8 rows in order to account for
every possible combination of truth and falsity among the three
statements. Here is the full truth table:
P Q R P→Q Q→R (P → Q) ∨ (Q → R)
T T T T T T
T T F T F T
T F T F T T
T F F F T T
F T T T T T
F T F T F T
F F T T T T
F F F T T T
 3.1. Propositional Logic 201

The first three columns are simply a systematic listing of all

possible combinations of T and F for the three statements (do you
see how you would list the 16 possible combinations for four state-
ments?). The next two columns are determined by the values of P,
Q, and R and the definition of implication. Then, the last column
is determined by the values in the previous two columns and the
definition of ∨. It is this final column we care about.
Notice that in each of the eight possible cases, the statement in
question is true. So our statement about monopoly is true (regard-
less of how many properties you own, how many doubles you roll,
or whether you win or lose).

The statement about monopoly is an example of a tautology, a state-

ment which is true on the basis of its logical form alone. Tautologies are
always true but they don’t tell us much about the world. No knowledge
about monopoly was required to determine that the statement was true.
In fact, it is equally true that “If the moon is made of cheese, then Elvis is
still alive, or if Elvis is still alive, then unicorns have 5 legs.”

Logical Equivalence
You might have noticed in Example 3.1.1 that the final column in the
truth table for ¬P ∨ Q is identical to the final column in the truth table for
P → Q:
P Q P→Q ¬P ∨ Q
T T T T
T F F F
F T T T
F F T T
This says that no matter what P and Q are, the statements ¬P ∨ Q and
P → Q either both true or both false. We therefore say these statements
are logically equivalent.
Logical Equivalence.
Two (molecular) statements P and Q are logically equivalent pro-
vided P is true precisely when Q is true. That is, P and Q have
the same truth value under any assignment of truth values to their
atomic parts.
To verify that two statements are logically equivalent, you can
make a truth table for each and check whether the columns for the
two statements are identical.
202 3. Symbolic Logic and Proofs

Recognizing two statements as logically equivalent can be very help-

ful. Rephrasing a mathematical statement can often lend insight into
what it is saying, or how to prove or refute it. By using truth tables we can
systematically verify that two statements are indeed logically equivalent.

Example 3.1.3

Are the statements, “it will not rain or snow” and “it will not rain
and it will not snow” logically equivalent?
Solution. We want to know whether ¬(P∨Q) is logically equivalent
to ¬P ∧ ¬Q. Make a truth table which includes both statements:
P Q ¬(P ∨ Q) ¬P ∧ ¬Q
T T F F
T F F F
F T F F
F F T T
Since in every row the truth values for the two statements are
equal, the two statements are logically equivalent.

Notice that this example gives us a way to “distribute” a negation

over a disjunction (an “or”). We have a similar rule for distributing over
conjunctions (“and”s):
De Morgan’s Laws.

¬(P ∧ Q) is logically equivalent to ¬P ∨ ¬Q.

¬(P ∨ Q) is logically equivalent to ¬P ∧ ¬Q.

This suggests there might be a sort of “algebra” you could apply to

statements (okay, there is: it is called Boolean algebra) to transform one
statement into another. We can start collecting useful examples of logical
equivalence, and apply them in succession to a statement, instead of
writing out a complicated truth table.
De Morgan’s laws do not do not directly help us with implications,
but as we saw above, every implication can be written as a disjunction:
Implications are Disjuctions.

P → Q is logically equivalent to ¬P ∨ Q.
Example: “If a number is a multiple of 4, then it is even” is
equivalent to, “a number is not a multiple of 4 or (else) it is even.”
 3.1. Propositional Logic 203

With this and De Morgan’s laws, you can take any statement and
simplify it to the point where negations are only being applied to atomic
propositions. Well, actually not, because you could get multiple negations
stacked up. But this can be easily dealt with:
Double Negation.

¬¬P is logically equivalent to P.

Example: “It is not the case that c is not odd” means “c is odd.”

Let’s see how we can apply the equivalences we have encountered so

far.

Example 3.1.4

Prove that the statements ¬(P → Q) and P ∧ ¬Q are logically

equivalent without using truth tables.
Solution. We want to start with one of the statements, and trans-
form it into the other through a sequence of logically equivalent
statements. Start with ¬(P → Q). We can rewrite the implication
as a disjunction this is logically equivalent to

¬(¬P ∨ Q).

Now apply DeMorgan’s law to get

¬¬P ∧ ¬Q.

Finally, use double negation to arrive at P ∧ ¬Q

Notice that the above example illustrates that the negation of an im-
plication is NOT an implication: it is a conjunction! We saw this before,
in Section 0.2, but it is so important and useful, it warants a second blue
box here:
Negation of an Implication.
The negation of an implication is a conjuction:

¬(P → Q) is logically equivalent to P ∧ ¬Q.

That is, the only way for an implication to be false is for the hypoth-
esis to be true AND the conclusion to be false.

To verify that two statements are logically equivalent, you can use
truth tables or a sequence of logically equivalent replacements. The truth
204 3. Symbolic Logic and Proofs

table method, although cumbersome, has the advantage that it can verify
that two statements are NOT logically equivalent.

Example 3.1.5

Are the statements (P ∨ Q) → R and (P → R) ∨ (Q → R) logically

equivalent?
Solution. Note that while we could start rewriting these statements
with logically equivalent replacements in the hopes of transforming
one into another, we will never be sure that our failure is due to
their lack of logical equivalence rather than our lack of imagination.
So instead, let’s make a truth table:
P Q R (P ∨ Q) → R (P → R) ∨ (Q → R)
T T T T T
T T F F F
T F T T T
T F F F T
F T T T T
F T F F T
F F T T T
F F F T T
Look at the fourth (or sixth) row. In this case, (P → R)∨(Q → R)
is true, but (P ∨ Q) → R is false. Therefore the statements are not
logically equivalent.
While we don’t have logical equivalence, it is the case that when-
ever (P ∨ Q) → R is true, so is (P → R) ∨ (Q → R). This tells us
that we can deduce (P → R) ∨ (Q → R) from (P ∨ Q) → R, just not
the reverse direction.

Deductions

Investigate!
Holmes owns two suits: one black and one tweed. He always
wears either a tweed suit or sandals. Whenever he wears his
tweed suit and a purple shirt, he chooses to not wear a tie. He
never wears the tweed suit unless he is also wearing either a
purple shirt or sandals. Whenever he wears sandals, he also
wears a purple shirt. Yesterday, Holmes wore a bow tie. What
else did he wear?

! Attempt the above activity before proceeding !

 3.1. Propositional Logic 205

Earlier we claimed that the following was a valid argument:

If Edith eats her vegetables, then she can have a cookie. Edith
ate her vegetables. Therefore Edith gets a cookie.

How do we know this is valid? Let’s look at the form of the statements.
Let P denote “Edith eats her vegetables” and Q denote “Edith can have a
cookie.” The logical form of the argument is then:
P→Q
P
∴ Q
This is an example of a deduction rule, an argument form which is
always valid. This one is a particularly famous rule called modus ponens.
Are you convinced that it is a valid deduction rule? If not, consider the
following truth table:
P Q P→Q
T T T
T F F
F T T
F F T
This is just the truth table for P → Q, but what matters here is that
all the lines in the deduction rule have their own column in the truth
table. Remember that an argument is valid provided the conclusion must
be true given that the premises are true. The premises in this case are
P → Q and P. Which rows of the truth table correspond to both of these
being true? P is true in the first two rows, and of those, only the first row
has P → Q true as well. And lo-and-behold, in this one case, Q is also
true. So if P → Q and P are both true, we see that Q must be true as well.
Here are a few more examples.

Example 3.1.6

Show that
P→Q
¬P → Q
∴ Q
is a valid deduction rule.
Solution. We make a truth table which contains all the lines of the
argument form:
206 3. Symbolic Logic and Proofs

P Q P→Q ¬P ¬P → Q
T T T F T
T F F F T
F T T T T
F F T T F
(we include a column for ¬P just as a step to help getting the
column for ¬P → Q).
Now look at all the rows for which both P → Q and ¬P → Q
are true. This happens only in rows 1 and 3. Hey! In those rows Q
is true as well, so the argument form is valid (it is a valid deduction
rule).

Example 3.1.7

Decide whether
P→R
Q→R
R
∴ P∨Q
is a valid deduction rule.
Solution. Let’s make a truth table containing all four statements.
P Q R P→R Q→R P∨Q
T T T T T T
T T F F F T
T F T T T T
T F F F T T
F T T T T T
F T F T F T
F F T T T F
F F F T T F
Look at the second to last row. Here all three premises of the
argument are true, but the conclusion is false. Thus this is not a
valid deduction rule.
While we have the truth table in front of us, look at rows 1,
3, and 5. These are the only rows in which all of the statements
statements P → R, Q → R, and P ∨ Q are true. It also happens
that R is true in these rows as well. Thus we have discovered a new
deduction rule we know is valid:
 3.1. Propositional Logic 207

P→R
Q→R
P∨Q
∴ R

Beyond Propositions
As we saw in Section 0.2, not every statement can be analyzed using
logical connectives alone. For example, we might want to work with the
statement:

All primes greater than 2 are odd.

To write this statement symbolically, we must use quantifiers. We can

translate as follows:

∀x((P(x) ∧ x > 2) → O(x)).

In this case, we are using P(x) to denote “x is prime” and O(x) to denote
“x is odd.” These are not propositions, since their truth value depends
on the input x. Better to think of P and O as denoting properties of their
input. The technical term for these is predicates and when we study them
in logic, we need to use predicate logic.
It is important to stress that predicate logic extends propositional logic
(much in the way quantum mechanics extends classical mechanics). You
will notice that our statement above still used the (propositional) logi-
cal connectives. Everything that we learned about logical equivalence
and deductions still applies. However, predicate logic allows us to ana-
lyze statements at a higher resolution, digging down into the individual
propositions P, Q, etc.
A full treatment of predicate logic is beyond the scope of this text.
One reason is that there is no systematic procedure for deciding whether
two statements in predicate logic are logically equivalent (i.e., there is no
analogue to truth tables here). Rather, we end with a two examples of
logical equivalence and deduction, to pique your interest.

Example 3.1.8

Suppose we claim that there is no smallest number. We can trans-

late this into symbols as

¬∃x∀y(x ≤ y)
208 3. Symbolic Logic and Proofs

(literally, “it is not true that there is a number x such that for all
numbers y, x is less than or equal to y”).
However, we know how negation interacts with quantifiers: we
can pass a negation over a quantifier by switching the quantifier
type (between universal and existential). So the statement above
should be logically equivalent to

∀x∃y(y < x).

Notice that y < x is the negation of x ≤ y. This literally says, “for

every number x there is a number y which is smaller than x.” We
see that this is another way to make our original claim.

Example 3.1.9

Can you switch the order of quantifiers? For example, consider the
two statements:

∀x∃yP(x, y) and ∃y∀xP(x, y).

Are these logically equivalent?

Solution. These statements are NOT logically equivalent. To see
this, we should provide an interpretation of the predicate P(x, y)
which makes one of the statements true and the other false.
Let P(x, y) be the predicate x < y. It is true, in the natural
numbers, that for all x there is some y greater than that x (since
there are infinitely many numbers). However, there is not a natural
number y which is greater than every number x. Thus it is possible
for ∀x∃yP(x, y) to be true while ∃y∀xP(x, y) is false.
We cannot do the reverse of this though. If there is some y for
which every x satisfies P(x, y), then certainly for every x there is
some y which satisfies P(x, y). The first is saying we can find one
y that works for every x. The second allows different y’s to work
for different x’s, but there is nothing preventing us from using the
same y that work for every x. In other words, while we don’t have
logical equivalence between the two statements, we do have a valid
deduction rule:
∃y∀xP(x, y)
∴ ∀x∃yP(x, y)
Put yet another way, this says that the single statement

∃y∀xP(x, y) → ∀x∃yP(x, y)
 3.1. Propositional Logic 209

is always true. This is sort of like a tautology, although we reserve

that term for necessary truths in propositional logic. A statement
in predicate logic that is necessarily true gets the more prestigious
designation of a law of logic (or sometimes logically valid, but
that is less fun).

Exercises
1. Consider the statement about a party, “If it’s your birthday or there
will be cake, then there will be cake.”
(a) Translate the above statement into symbols. Clearly state which
statement is P and which is Q.
(b) Make a truth table for the statement.
(c) Assuming the statement is true, what (if anything) can you
conclude if there will be cake?
(d) Assuming the statement is true, what (if anything) can you
conclude if there will not be cake?
(e) Suppose you found out that the statement was a lie. What can
you conclude?
2. Make a truth table for the statement (P ∨ Q) → (P ∧ Q).
3. Make a truth table for the statement ¬P ∧ (Q → P). What can you
conclude about P and Q if you know the statement is true?
4. Make a truth table for the statement ¬P → (Q ∧ R).
5. Geoff Poshingten is out at a fancy pizza joint, and decides to order a
calzone. When the waiter asks what he would like in it, he replies, “I
want either pepperoni or sausage. Also, if I have sausage, then I must
also include quail. Oh, and if I have pepperoni or quail then I must
also have ricotta cheese.”
(a) Translate Geoff’s order into logical symbols.
(b) The waiter knows that Geoff is either a liar or a truth-teller (so
either everything he says is false, or everything is true). Which
is it?
(c) What, if anything, can the waiter conclude about the ingredients
in Geoff’s desired calzone?
6. Determine whether the following two statements are logically equiv-
alent: ¬(P → Q) and P ∧ ¬Q. Explain how you know you are correct.